indeed, were the odds against him, that we find in that fact the chief reason for the indisposition of the world to believe in the possibility of war, and its extraordinary surprise when war actually broke out.

To those who had closely scanned the affairs of Europe, and who observed them by the light of the history of nearly four centuries, the coming of war was no surprise. They foresaw it, and predicted its occurrence some time before that famous lecture which the Emperor of the French administered to the Emperor of Austria in the person of Baron Hübner. With them, the question was not, Shall there be a war?- but it was, When will the war break out? They reasoned from the cause of the quarrel between the two empires; while those who so long clung to the belief that peace would be preserved, and who so plausibly argued in support of their theory as to impose upon wellnigh the whole world, concerned themselves only with its occasion. The former referred to things that lay beyond the range of temporary politics, and, while admitting that the shock of actual conflict might be postponed even for a few years, were certain that such conflict must come, even if in the interval there should happen an entire change of government in France. France might be imperial, or royal, or republican,-she might be Bonapartean, or Henriquist, or Orléansist, or democratic,—tri-color, white, blue, or red, but the quarrel would come, and cause new campaigns. The latter, thinking that the dispute was on the Italian question only, and knowing that that was susceptible of diplomatic settlement, and believing that there would be a union of European powers to accomplish such settlement, rather than allow peace to be disturbed, never could suppose that the balance of probabilities would be found on the side of war. It is due to them to say, that a variety of causes conduced not merely to make them firm in their faith, but to win for their views the general approbation of mankind. Prominent among these was the striking fact, that there had been no European war, strictly

so called, with the single exception of the Russian contest,- and that was highly exceptional in its character,- for fourand-forty years. The generation that is passing away, and the generation that is most active in discharging the business of the world, never had seen a grand conflict between Christian states, in which mighty armies had operated on vast and various fields. Old men recollected the wars of Napoleon, but the number of such men is not large, and their influence on opinion is small. Of quarrels and threats of war all had seen enough; but this only tended to make them slow to believe that war was really at hand. If so many quarrels had taken place, and had been settled without resort to arms, assuredly the new quarrel might be settled, and Europe get on peaceably for a few years more without warfare. Neither the invasion of Spain in 1823, nor the revolution of 1830, nor the Eastern question of 1840, nor the universal outbreaks of 1848-9, nor the threats of Russia against Turkey when she sought to compel the Sultan to give up those who had eaten his salt to the gallows of Arad, nor the repeated discussions of the practicability of a French conquest of England had led to a general war. If so many and so black clouds had been dispersed without storms, it was not unreasonable to believe that the cloud which rose in the beginning of 1859 might also break, and leave again a serene sky. It may be added, that we have all of us come to the conclusion that this is the best age the world has ever known, as in most respects it is; and it seemed scarcely compatible with our estimate of the age's excellence to believe that it could send a couple of million of men into the field for the purpose of cutting one another's throats, except clearly as an act of selfdefence. Man is the same war-making animal now that he was in the days of Marathon, but he readily admits the evils of war, and is peremptory in demanding that they shall not be incurred save for good and valid reasons. He is as ready to fight as ever he was, but he must fight

for some definite cause,- for a cause that will bear examination; and it did not seem possible that a mere dispute concerning the manner in which Austria governed her Italian dominions was of sufficient moment to light up the flames of war anew on a scale as gigantic as ever they were made to blaze during the days of Napoleon. Then, so far as the Russian War threw any light upon the policy of France, the fair inference was that she at least was not disposed to fight. France made the peace by which that war was brought to a sudden end. She dictated that peace, much to the disgust of the English, who had just become thoroughly roused, and who, little anticipating the Indian mutiny, were for carrying on the contest until Russia should be thoroughly humiliated. Considering all these things, it was not unreasonable to believe that peace could be maintained, and that Austria, far from taking the initiative in the war, would be found ready to make such concessions as should lead to the indefinite postponement of hostilities.

Those who reasoned from the mere occasion of the war were perfectly right, from their point of view. Unfortunately for their reputation for sagacity, their premises were entirely wrong, and hence the viciousness of their conclusion. If we would know the cause of the war, we must banish from our minds all that is said about the desire of Napoleon III. for vengeance on the conquerors of his uncle, all that we are told of his sentimental wish for the elevation of the Italian people to a national position, and all that is predicated of his ambitious longings for the reconstruction of the First Empire. We must regard Napoleon III. in the light of what he really is, namely, one of the greatest statesmen that ever lived, or we shall never be able to understand what are his purposes. We have nothing to do with his morals, but have to regard him only as the chief of France, pursuing the policy he believes best calculated to advance that country's interests, and doing so in strict accordance with her historical traditions, and in the same

manner in which it was pursued by the ablest of the Valois kings, by Henry IV. and Sully, by Richelieu and Mazarin, by Louis XIV., by the chiefs of the First Republic, and by Napoleon I. He may be a good man or a bad man, but his character is entirely aside from the question, the nature and merits of which have no necessary connection with the nature and merits of the men engaged in effecting its solution. Let us examine the subject, and see if we cannot find an intelligent, reasonable cause for Napoleon's course of action, that shall harmonize with the duties, we might almost say the instincts, of a great French statesman. The examination will embrace nothing recondite, but we are confident it will show that the French Emperor is no Quixote, and that he has been forced into the war by the necessities of his situation, and by the very natural desire he feels to prevent France from being compelled to descend to a secondary place in the scale of European nations.

Modern Europe, in the sense in which we understand the term, dates from the last quarter of the Fifteenth Century. Then England ceased to attempt permanent conquests on the continent. Then Spain assumed European rank and definite position. But two powers then began especially to show themselves, and to play parts which both have maintained down to the present time. The one was France, which then ceased to dread English invasions, from the effects of which she was rapidly recovering, whereby she was left to employ her energies on foreign fields. The other was the House of Austria, which, by a series of fortunate marriages, became, in the short period of forty years, the most powerful family the modern world has ever known. On the day when Maximilian, son of Frederick III., Emperor of Germany, wedded Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, the rivalry between France and the Austrian family began. Philip, son of that marriage, married Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; and their son, Charles I. of the Spains, became Charles

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V. of Germany. Thus there centred in his person a degree of power such as no other sovereign could boast, and which alone would have sufficed to make him the rival of the King of France, Francis I., had no personal feeling entered into the relations between them. But such feeling existed, and grew out of their competition for the imperial crown. The previous ill-will between the Valois and the Hapsburg was greatly increased, and assumed such force as permanently to color the course of European history from that day to this. The rivalry of Charles and Francis was the cause of many contests, and the French monarch, though he was The Most Christian King," in the opinion of some, more than once aided, or offered to aid, the German Protestants against the Emperor. To Philip II. and Henry II. the rivalry of their fathers descended as an inheritance. It was in their warfare that the Battle of St. Quentin was fought. The progress of the Reformation led monarchs in those days to take a view of affairs not much unlike that which monarchs of this century took in the days of the Holy Alliance, and after the revolution of 1830. The hatred of Protestantism led the two kings to draw together, though Henry II. had had no mean part in that work which had enabled the Protestant Maurice of Saxony to render abortive all the plans of Charles V. for the full restoration of Catholicism in Germany. During the thirty years that followed the death of Henry II., the dissensions of France had rendered her unable to contend with the House of Austria, then principally represented by the Spanish branch of that family; and Philip II. at one time thought of obtaining the crown of that country for a member of his own house. But no sooner had Henry IV. ascended the French throne, and established himself firmly thereon, than the rivalry of France and Austria became as clearly pronounced as it had been in the reign of Francis I.; and at the time of his death that most popular of the Bourbon kings was engaged on a plan having

for its object the subversion of the Austrian power. His assassination changed the course of events for a few years; but Richelieu became the ally of the Swedes and Protestant Germans in the Thirty Years' War, though he was a Cardinal, had destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, and might have aspired to the Papacy. Mazarin, another Cardinal, followed Richelieu's policy. Louis XIV. was repeatedly at war with the House of Austria, though he was the son of an Austrian princess, and was married to another. His last war with that house was for the throne of Spain, when the elder branch of the Hapsburgs died out, in 1700. Louis XV. had two contests with Austria; but in 1756, under the lead of Count Kaunitz, France and Austria were united, and acted together in the Seven Years' War, the incidents and effects of which were by no means calculated to reconcile the French to the departure of their government from its ancient policy. One of the causes of the French Revolution was the Austrian alliance, and one of its effects was the complete rupture of that alliance. Austria was the most determined foe that the French Republic and Empire ever encountered. Including the war of 1815, there were six contests between Austria and republican and imperial France. In all these wars Austria was the aggressor, and showed herself to be the enemy of France as well as of those French principles which so frightened the conservatives of the world in those days. In the first war, she took possession of French places for herself, and not for the House of Bourbon; and in the last she purposed a partition of France, long after Louis XVIII. had been finally restored, and when Napoleon was at or near St. Helena. She demanded that Alsace and Lorraine should be made over to her, in the autumn of 1815. She sought to induce Prussia to unite with her by offering to support any demand that she might make for French territory; and, failing to move that power, endeavored to get the smaller German States to act with

her, the same States, indeed, that are now so hostile to France, and which talk of a march upon Paris, and of a reduction of French territorial strength. Nothing prevented the Austrian idea from being reduced to practice but the opposition of Russia and England, neither of which had any interest in the spoliation of France, while both had no desire to see Austria rendered stronger than she was. It was to England that Austria owed her Italian possessions, which, in 1814, she at first had the sense not to wish to be cumbered with; and to make her still more powerful north of the Alps was not to be thought of even by the Liverpools and Castlereaghs. The Czar, too, had in his thoughts a closer connection with France than it suited him then to avow, and for purposes of his own; and therefore he could not desire the sensible diminution of the power of a country the resources of which he expected to employ. Nicholas inherited his brother's ideas and designs, and we are to attribute much of the ill-feeling that he exhibited towards the Orléans dynasty to his disappointment; for the revolution that elevated that dynasty to the French throne destroyed the hope that he had entertained of having French aid to effect the conquest of Turkey. There never would have been a siege of Sebastopol, if the elder branch of the Bourbons had continued to rule in France. It required even a series of revolutions to bring France to that condition in which the Western Alliance was possible. But there would have been something more than an "understanding" between France and Russia concerning Austria, had the government of the Restoration endured a few years beyond 1830. It suited the Austrian government to show considerable coldness towards the Orléans dynasty; but assuredly so wise a man as Prince Metternich, and who had such excellent means of information, never could have believed otherwise than that the establishment of that dynasty saved Austria from being assailed by both Russia and France.

The rivalry of France and Austria being understood, and that rivalry leading to war whenever occasion therefor chances to arise, it remains to inquire what is the occasion of the existing contest. When Napoleon III. became head of France, as Prince-President, at the close of 1848, Austria was the last power with which he could have engaged in war, supposing that he had then been strong enough to control the policy of France, and it had suited him to make an occasion for war. She was then engaged in her death-andlife struggles with Hungarians, Italians, and others of her subjects who that year threw off her yoke, while the Sardinians had endeavored to obtain possession of Lombardy and Venice. Francis Joseph became chief of the Austrian Empire at the same time that Louis Napoleon ascended to the same point in France. Certainly, if the object of France had been the mere weakening and spoliation of Austria, then was the time to assail her, when one half her subjects were fighting the other half, when the Germans outside of her empire were by no means her friends, and when it was far from clear that she could rely upon assistance from Russia. Austria was then in a condition of helplessness apparently so complete, that many thought her hour had come; but those who knew her history, and were aware how often she had recovered from just such crises, held no belief of the kind. Yet if France had assailed her at that time, Austria must have lost all her Italian provinces; and it is now generally admitted, that, if Cavaignac had sent a French army into Italy immediately after the victory won by Radetzky over Charles Albert at Somma Campagna, (July 26th, 1848,) the "Italian question" would then have been settled in a manner that would have been satisfactory to the greater part of Europe, and have rendered such a war as is now waging in Italy quite impossible, Russia could have done nothing to prevent the success of the French arms, and it is probable that Austria would have abandoned the contest without fighting a bat

tle. At an earlier period she had signified her readiness to allow the incorporation of most of Lombardy with Sardinia, she to retain the country beyond the Mincio, and to hold the two great fortresses of Peschiera (at the southern extremity of the Lago di Garda, and at the point where the river issues from the lake) and Mantua. She even asked the aid of France and England to effect a peace on this basis, but unsuccessfully. Cavaignac's anomalous political position prevented him from aiding the Italians. He was a Liberal, but the actual head of the reactionists in France of all colors, of men who looked upon the Italians as ruffians wedded to disorder, while Austria, in their eyes, was the champion of order. France did nothing, and in December Louis Napoleon became President. An opportunity was soon afforded him to interfere in Italian affairs. The armistice that had existed between the Austrians and the Sardinians after the 9th of August, 1848, was denounced on the 12th of March, 1849, by the latter; and Radetzky closed the order of the day, issued immediately after this denunciation was made, with the words," Forward, soldiers, to Turin!"

The intentions of the Sardinians must have been known to Louis Napoleon, but he took no measures to aid them. He saw Piedmont conquered in a campaign of "hours." He saw Brescia treated by Haynau as Tilly treated Magdeburg. He saw the long and heroical defence of Venice against the Austrians, during the dreary spring and summer of '49,- a defence as worthy of immortality as the War of Chiozza, and indicating the presence of the spirit of Zeno, and Contarini, and Pisani in the old home of those patriots. But nothing moved him. He would not even mediate in behalf of the Venetians; and it was by the advice of the French consul and the French admiral on the station that Venice finally surrendered, but not until she had exhausted the means of defence and life. At that time, few men in America but were in the habit of denouncing the French President for his

indifference to the Italian cause. He was charged with having been guilty of a blunder and a crime. His consent to the expedition to Rome aggravated his offence, for it was an act of intervention on the wrong side. But the passage of ten years enables us to be more just to him than it was possible for us to be in 1849. He was not firm in his seat. He was but a temporary chief of the State. He was surrounded by enemies, political and personal, who were seeking his overthrow, without any regard for the tenure of his office. He knew not his power. His object was the restoration of internal peace to France, her recovery from the weakness into which she had fallen or had been precipitated. He dared not offend the Catholics, who saw then, as they see now, a champion in Austria. He was the victim of circumstances, and he had to bow before them, in order that he might finally become their master. Then he had no occasion for a quarrel with Austria. She was at the lowest ebb her fortunes had known since the day that the Turks appeared for the second time before Vienna. She could not have maintained herself in Italy, even after the successes of Radetzky, had not Nicholas sent one hundred and fifty thousand men to her assistance in Hungary. What had France to fear from her? No more than she had to fear from her on the day after Austerlitz.

Years rolled on, and brought with them great changes; and the greatest of those changes was to be seen in Italy, in reference to the position of Austria there, and its effect upon France. Austria rapidly reëstablished her power in Italy, not only over Lombardy and Venice, but over every part of the Peninsula, excepting Sardinia. Tuscany was connected with her by various ties, and was ruled as she wished it to be ruled. Parma and Modena were hers in every sense. She was the patron and protector of the abominable Bomba, and her support alone enabled him to defy the sentiment of the civilized world, and to indulge in cruelties such as would have added new in